Despite leading the district in rushing yards coming into the game, quarterback Keaton Huebner found there was not much open field to run on as he's caught behind the line by Edgar Rodriguez.

Cole McNanna/Sealy News

Posted
Friday, September 28, 2018 11:16 pm

By Cole McNanna sports@sealynews.com

The Tigers got ahead quick and never looked back to achieve their first district win of the season, the primary step in a long process.

Although the visiting team won the coin flip, Sealy started with the ball to begin the game and meticulously worked its way down the field before Matthew Lord took over.

Even though the run play looked bogged up in the middle immediately, Lord patiently looked for another way out and broke to the outside and up the sidelines 29 yards to grab the lead and turn Fulshear’s decision to defer to the second half on its head.

Before the game, head coach Shane Mobley mentioned that the Chargers had shown a great deal of variety in how they lineup and that his defense was going to have to expect that to start the game.

They did exactly that on just the third play from scrimmage where senior Derek Bollinger stole the ball right from Keaton Huebner’s hand before he fell to the ground.

“I kind of missed the tackle at first but I snuck up behind him and I was wrapped around him,” Bollinger started. “The Ball was loose on his right side so I reached in and ripped out and came up with the ball.”

However, with that being the high-traffic area on the field, there was someone already in his vicinity but either way, he forced a crucial turnover.

“I turned around and I looked at the receiver and I know he saw me so I knew I wasn’t about to outrun him,” he noted. “Anything to cause a turnover for my team though.”

The defense got another three-and-out stop to return the ball to Garret Zaskoda and the offense.

Another big run capped a scoring drive but this time it came from #5 in Ivan Bolden, who broke off a 38-yard jaunt to pay dirt to increase the lead to 15-0 after only the first quarter.

It was from that point on that Zaskoda and his top receiver, Clay Roberts, took over to inflate the lead to put the game out of reach.

A 14-yard fade placed where only Roberts could haul it in gave Sealy a 22-0 lead in which they would sit on at halftime for the third game in this young season.

After a field goal and a punt, the senior classmates connected on consecutive possessions, the latter of which answering Fulshear’s first score of the game coming with 9:44 left in the game.

The third and final touchdown-connection was the longest of the trio at 23 yards, and made the score 39-8 with just under seven and a half minutes left to play.

The Charger offense again stalled out, rotating two quarterbacks in who both earned their fair share of licks.

The final drive for the visitors started in the red zone after a mistake on a punt. Phillip Guevara was the signal-caller at that point and needed a few minutes to get up following the failure on fourth down to effectively end the game and hand the first district matchup in a Fulshear history to its opponent.

Coach Mobley mentioned that 5-0 may feel nice now but he knows there’s still work to be done, already mentioning the Bazosport Exporters in his postgame interview.

However, he did mention that the current record certainly deserves recognition: “And that’s the kids buying in and the community showing their support,” shielding the credit from the coaching staff onto the athletes out there making the plays.

Cody Manna and Garrett Redden noted it certainly felt good but understand it didn’t come out of thin air.

“It was a lotta flying around, a lot of intensity, a lot of hard work we’ve been putting in and a lot of brotherhood,” Redden mentioned.

Manna said that although the big lead is nice at intermission, they still need to be ready for anything come out of the gates, but stated, “it pumps us up knowing we’re up.”

Luckily the offense was able to allow them play with a lead and that was exemplified with yet another win on Mark A. Chapman field in T.J. Mills Stadium for the Sealy Tigers.